


Swipe Right

by Englandwouldfall



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Awkward Dean, Charlie Ships It, Coming Out, Fluff, Humor, M/M, Romance, Tinder, i wouldn't ask really, mild sexuality crisis, solved by tinder?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-30
Updated: 2015-07-30
Packaged: 2018-04-11 23:50:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,409
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4457252
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Englandwouldfall/pseuds/Englandwouldfall
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Dean sort of came out via Tinder, Castiel-from-across-the-hall never buys enough groceries and Sam and Charlie need to stop interfering with both his phone and his (none-existent) love life.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Swipe Right

**Author's Note:**

> This was supposed to be like... this dumb 1000 word thing I wrote because my housemates stole my phone and downloaded tinder and then one accidentally came out during the process because of her bloody tinder preferences, which I thought was truly wonderful (and unsurprising after three years of living together)... but I guess it got kind of long in the end. As a warning, this is pointless and borderline silly and I got a great deal of enjoyment out of writing it.

It started because Sam thinks he’s a lot funnier than he is. 

Dean left his phone unattended for an alcohol run and he came back to sixteen notifications from frigging _Tinder_ and his irritating dick of a brother doing a piss poor job of looking like he didn’t know anything about it. As it turns out, his teenage kid brother set up Dean’s profile with that god awful picture from his last birthday, another photo that should only ever be used for blackmailing material, and a bio of ‘overcompensating and less intelligent than I look.’ 

Thing was, though, people were actually _interested_. Even with the fact that he was drunk off his ass, mouth open, asleep or drooling in all of Sam’s selected photos, some actual human beings were sat on their phones and were impressed enough to swipe right on his sorry ass. He chewed Sam out about it, got a few lines about how Sam thought Dean should ‘put himself out there’ and then Dean threw a couple of pieces of popcorn in his direction and told Sam he wouldn’t let him visit again if he kept being such a bitch. 

But, Tinder stayed after Sam left. The photo choices did not and he got rid of the bio altogether because, well, he didn’t have much shit to stay. Student, big brother, lives on campus and likes pizza. It was all just kind of lame. 

He hadn’t _spoken_ to anyone on the damn thing – it felt kind of weird, striking up a conversation with someone he had a maximum of four photos and a few sentences about – but then Charlie caught him surreptitiously swiping left under the table whilst they were having coffee. Then he got a ‘dude’ and Charlie nicked his phone and somehow got him a date with this bad ass chick called Jamie in under five minutes. 

The date was pretty frigging decent. He’d half expected her to turn out to be some creepy, middle aged dude, or a psycho axe- murderer. She was hot, funny and really sweet. Three dates later they mutually decided they didn’t have a whole lot in common, slept together because why not and called it a day. 

So, he once again made the decision not to delete it. 

A couple of important tinder lessons later (don’t drunk-tinder, never swipe right on anyone you know, if the person sounds kind of weird they’re probably hella weird and enter into tinder-land with relatively low expectations for high-brow conversation) and he was sort of getting into the swing of things. He’d met a couple of not wholly awful people (although no one as nice as Jamie; Charlie had great taste in women) but largely used it as a technique to fend off boredom or an instant self-confidence boost. 

Then Charlie had to throw out another damn curveball. 

“These are all chicks,” Charlie said, scrolling through his list of matches. She was _supposed_ to be filtering through his matches to find someone worth hitting on because, apparently, spending a second Friday night in a row in alone was too tragic for her to deal with. “You extra picky when it comes to the men-folk or something?” 

“What? No. Sam set it up.” 

“Dude,” Charlie said, “Sam probably knows you’re hiding in Narnia.” 

“Conversation not happening,” 

“And you could still have changed your preferences when you changed everything else.” Dean shifted uncomfortably in his seat in the coffee joint. _Maybe_ he was still ever so slightly closeted, not just with Sam and his family but mostly everyone who wasn’t Charlie (and that was a bit of an accident), but… he had his reasons. He’d only really just exited the denial zone. He just needed a little more _time_ before he did something crazy like update his frigging Tinder preferences. “Dude, no one can _see_ if they look at your profile.” 

“Huh?” 

“It doesn’t say what you’re into anywhere. You’ll just show up on other dudes who are into dude’s phones.” 

“Oh,” 

“One day I’m gonna bring you into the twenty-first century.” 

“I have tinder,” Dean said icily, “I’m practically one of those Apple Savant people.” 

“They’re called Geniuses,” Charlie returned, “And that’s probably not something to brag about.” 

“Whatever,” Dean said, taking his phone back and changing the topic of conversation to Harry Potter or LARP or one of those other nerdy things that Charlie had always been into. He didn’t want to think about the whole process of coming-out, especially not _coming out_ via tinder, so whatever. 

Except, by eleven PM on his second Friday night alone, it didn’t seem like a _terrible_ idea. If Charlie was right, then there was no real harm. If he did stumble into any of the guys he knew whilst swiping, then it wasn’t like they could say anything bad about it. They probably wouldn’t out him, either. It was a less scary way of making his interest in men known to other men that might be interested in men than going to gay bar (Charlie managed to get him there twice and it was not happening again), or trusting his instincts and hitting on someone and hoping for the best. Neither of those options felt remotely _safe_ at current. 

The fact that he’d drank most of a six pack of beer himself didn’t harm matters, either. 

So, he found the settings (and maybe it took him a while, but that didn’t mean that he was technologically impotent like Charlie and Sam were always saying) and ticked the ‘men’ box along with the ‘women’ box. 

(And maybe he didn’t turn the app on again for nearly a week afterwards but…baby steps). 

* 

The only reason Charlie knew about Dean’s less than stellar grip on his heterosexuality in the first place was because a month into the semester Castiel-from-across-the-hall knocked on his damn door to ask if he could borrow some milk. 

“Dude,” Charlie had said, after he’d awkwardly stumbled through the conversation and come out of it sounding like an uneducated asshat, because Castiel had a voice that made his brain cells check out on a good day and that day the guy had clearly just woken up. “What was _that_?” 

“Uh,” Dean said, even though he already knew where this was going, but he wasn’t quite as not-okay with it as usual. If anyone had to be the one to call him out on his stupid crush, Charlie wasn’t the worst person to do it. “What was what?” 

Charlie threw his pillow at him, conceded that Castiel was ‘dreamy’ and then waited for Dean to bring up the whole thing up of his own volition. He managed it another fortnight later. 

He was making progress with this whole coming to terms with his sexuality crap, but it was a hell of a lot of more difficult than he was expecting to be. It was one thing admitting to _himself_ that he had a certain weakness for stubble and muscles, but it was a different thing entirely letting anyone else know that. 

Even random strangers on frigging tinder. 

* 

Everything was going perfectly fine until Charlie pulled her usual trick of sticking her nose so far into his business that she was pretty much drowning in it. She’d invited herself over even though Dean was supposed to be revising for a stupid pop-quiz, which meant she was complaining about being bored whilst Dean tried to cram some more useless facts into his head. She only took his phone to entertain herself with and, well, he didn’t really think about stopping her until she started talking. 

“You talked to any one of your three male matches on tinder?” 

“Wait, what the hell are you doing on my Tinder, Charlie?” 

“Nothing,” 

“If you talk to anyone I swear I’ll –” Dean began and then, somehow, the whole thing descended into him trying to half-wrestle the damn thing out of her hands. He’d forgotten Charlie had all those mad-LARP moves until he was flat on his back with Charlie sat on his chest, phone held triumphantly aloft. 

Of fucking course that would be when Castiel-from-across-the-hall walked into his bedroom. The guy was shocked enough at finding him with a girl frigging sat on him to not spout a ‘hello, Dean’ which was the first time since their original can-I-borrow-some-onions meet-cute. The guy was, apparently, not very good at grocery shopping. 

“Hey, Cas,” Dean managed, after a mortifying few seconds of silence. “This, uh, Charlie just –” 

“– I was trying to talk to his matches on Tinder.” 

“What’s… Tinder?” Castiel asked, tilting his head slightly. 

“Doesn’t matter,” Dean said, quickly, pushing Charlie off his chest and standing up. He was pretty much thanking a whole host of Gods he didn’t believe in that Cas had never even _heard_ of Tinder, because it meant he didn’t have to murder Charlie for the sake of his dignity. “You out of eggs again?” 

“Tomatoes. Do you…?” 

“Help yourself. You know where they are, right?” 

“Thank you, Dean,” Castiel said, offering him up one of those almost-smiles, “Nice to meet you, Charlie.” 

“You too, Castiel.” Charlie said, in a way that Dean knew meant he was completely and utterly screwed. 

She gave him about three minutes of peace before she looked at him, clearly resisting the urge to start smirking at his pathetic ass before saying, “You don’t even like tomatoes.” 

“He runs out a them lot,” Dean muttered icily. 

Charlie threw another pillow at his head and laughed for about another fifteen minutes. 

* 

He avoided Charlie for about a fortnight before he admitted that it probably was _that funny_ and he’d have laughed just as hard at her, even if he could do without the now frequent questions about Castiel. Currently, she was giving him crap about insisting they hang around the college wifi zone for long enough that Tinder reinstalled instead, though, which was marginally less awful to listen to. Just about. 

“Why did you delete it in the first place?” 

“Sam visited,” 

“Dean, come on,” Charlie said, “He’s _Sam_.” 

“You say that like you’ve met him more than twice,” Dean muttered, watching the installing bar increase a little more. He’d been in two minds about reinstalling the damn thing in the first place, but deleting it had taken about two seconds of thought. It wasn’t even just the bisexual thing, because he probably could have deleted all his male matches and changed his preferences _just in case_ Sam happened to mess with his phone again, it was just that Sam was his little brother so was practically required to give him shit for things like Tinder. He’d have done the same. “Two minutes, all right.” 

Truth was, he almost missed the damn thing. There was something unduly appealing about being able to sit in his bed after a twelve hour library stint, eating pizza with his hair unwashed, wearing a pair of grubby sweats that he should have thrown out years ago and pretending like he had the right to be picky. It didn’t hurt that he was still somewhat of a hit, either, because it meant he got to be gross and disgusting, not leave his dorm room and still get the odd ‘ding’ of his phone telling him that someone in a ten mile radius found him attractive. 

Plus, he actually felt like he was making progress with the whole sexuality crisis business. He’d nearly arranged a date with one of his matches before something came up on the other guys end right before Dean had uninstall it. 

“Seen Castiel lately?” 

“He stopped round when Sam was here to borrow some butter,” 

“He’s so into you, Dean.” 

“What? No.” Dean returned, probably a little too quickly, in a vague attempt to act like he didn't care about what Charlie’s saying. Obviously, it tanked because Charlie has seen his bubbling-awkward act in technicolour real life and there was no coming back from that. 

“He’s either into you or taking advantage of your grocery stash. No one runs out of tomatoes four times in a month Dean, they just don’t.” 

“Shut up.” 

“It’s kind of cute, actually,” 

“Charlie,” Dean muttered, “Drop it.” 

“You ever considered Grindr?” 

Some days he doesn’t really remember why he made friends with Charlie in the first place. 

* 

It _was_ easier to tick men and women the second time. He knew that it was pretty pathetic and very much a non-event, but it still felt like an achievement that he just ticked the damn box and set about swiping without having to drink anything or having a minor heart attack. The world wasn’t about to end any time soon and, anyway, he was pretty damn sure he wasn’t going to swipe into any guys he knew. He'd handle if he did. He would just swipe left, quickly, like he had done with all the chicks he'd run into. It was fine. Perfectly fucking fine. 

He didn’t usually get a whole lot of men show up, anyway, which was probably why it took him a few seconds after _godamn Castiel_ showed up on in his Tinder for his brain to kick into gear. 

Castiel. Across-the-corridor, runs out of some kind of foodstuff every other day, Castiel. Cas, Castiel. 

Dean was so so fucked. 

* 

Everything was _not_ okay. He’d been about five seconds away from a complete catatonic breakdown ever since he ran into Cas on Tinder for at least sixteen different reasons, the first being that he didn’t immediately swipe left like he _should have done_ but instead panicked, shut the whole app down and drank a fifth of whiskey to calm the fuck down. The second being that Cas-can-I-borrow-some-onions-tiel happened to be one of those men who was in to men too; the guy who basically outed him because Dean had shit for brains whenever anyone was that frigging cute. Dean was pretty sure Cas owed him about a weeks’ worth of wages in groceries at this point. 

“Deano, you’re being weird lately.” 

“Your face is being weird, Charlie,” Dean snapped, dropping his phone onto the table to press his knuckles into his forehead. He needed to _sort his goddamn head out_ , because this was resolutely not part of the plan. It wasn’t. 

“Witty as ever,” 

“Shut up,” 

“You shut up,” Charlie shot back, just as Dean looked up from burying his head in his hands (as a metaphor for the sand he was currently up to his neck in) to find that she’d picked up his phone. They were theoretically doing work, but that generally meant very little when Charlie was involved. She was the kind of clever that made studying almost superfluous. 

“Charlie, get off that,” 

There must have been something in his voice which made her realise he was serious, because her eyebrows hit her hairline almost immediately and then she put the phone back down excessively slowly, holding her hands up in a mock-surrender. 

“Dude, you know I was joking about talking to the dudes on your Tinder. That is a-o-not-okay when you’re still working through the whole sexuality crisis thing. So not cool.” 

“No, I know,” 

“Then what’s with the panic?” 

“I just…” Dean said, but by that point Charlie was already reaching back for the fucking phone, then she opened Tinder and Cas’ profile _was still right there_ like it had been the last six hundred time he’d checked. 

“Dude,” 

“Charlie,” Dean hissed, “This is not a big deal.” 

“Try telling that to your heart rate,” Charlie said, “You gonna swipe right?” 

“No,” 

“No?” 

“No, Charlie, I’m not.” 

“Then you won’t mind if I just – “ 

Dean had the stupid fucking phone back in his hand before Charlie had a chance to even _finish_ miming swiping left. He knew she wasn’t actually going to do it, but that didn’t mean his general fight-or-flight adrenaline spike didn’t kick in big time. He needed to sort his head out. 

“You trying to give me goddamn aneurysm?” Dean hissed, leaning so far over the table that wood dug painfully into his stomach. 

“Never thought he’d actually get it.” Dean sent her an I-have-no-idea-what-you’re-talking-about-look, which was usually saved for discussions about the areas of geekdom that she hadn’t managed to drag him into (yet). “Tinder. I told him to look it up.” 

“What? When?” 

“On Facebook,” 

“You have Cas on Facebook? I don’t even have Cas on Facebook.” 

“This is why I get laid more than you,” Charlie said, pointing her pen in his direction and raising her eyebrows at him. He was probably even more fucked than he had been before Charlie took his damn phone, which had been a pretty high grade level of fucked. Dean buried his face in his pile of textbooks and groaned. 

He had the worst fucking friends and absolutely all of this was Sam’s fault. Well, Sam and Charlie. Fuck them both. Fuck them both so hard. 

* 

Sam was visiting again and Dean had a three hour freak out about what to do about Tinder before he finally decided _what the hell_ and figured he’d just keep a twenty four seven guard on his phone until Sam left again. Charlie said she was almost proud of him, even though it was a fucking month since Castiel showed up on his Tinder and he still hadn’t decided what the hell he was going to do about it, if anything. 

If he had any sense he’d have swiped left and deleted the app off his phone ages ago. 

“Hey Dean, my cell’s flat. Can I just borrow yours to text Bobby that I got here okay?” Sam said, turning round with Dean’s phone in his right hand. Obviously, he wasn't as good a guard dog as he realised, because his stupid phone and his opportunity with Cas was right there in his brother's hand. 

Dean ripped the thing out of his hands before Sam even had a chance to unlock the thing, then he was left awkwardly clutching his phone to his chest with Charlie looking amused from his desk chair (she liked Sam so they’d planned to have a Star Wars marathon, a decision that Dean regretted already) and Sam staring at him like he was some kind of crazy person. Probably accurate. 

“Uh,” 

“Dean I just want to send a text message,” Sam said, looking at him with an eyebrow raised. 

“I can do it,” 

“You’re acting kind of weird here, Dean.” 

“Aint letting you touch my damn phone after last time,” Dean said and he actually didn’t think it was a bad recovery, all things considered (for example, the fact that his blood pressure had risen significantly and that he was pretty sure he was currently an impressive shade of purple), but Sam clearly didn’t buy it. 

“Just let me send the text.” Sam said, holding out his hand for the phone. 

“I’m bisexual,” 

“What?” 

“What?” Dean repeated, heart sinking. He was pretty sure he’d never said those words out loud. Charlie had seen him checking out enough women, along with the whole Cas thing, to know that he swung both ways and he hadn’t bought any of it up with anyone else. He hadn’t meant to say it now, either, it just fell out his mouth whilst he was panicking about losing his chance with Cas. 

Not that he _had_ a chance. He had an opportunity to swipe right on fucking Tinder, which he still hadn’t done, a whole month down the line. It still didn’t mean anything. Cas had probably swiped left on him ages ago, like normal sane people did when they saw someone they knew on Tinder, which was still a terrifying thought in that it mean _Cas knew_ but… still. 

“Why does that mean I can’t text Bobby from your phone?” Sam asked, still looking confused. “Unless you’ve got someone sending you dick pics or something.” 

“What, no, Sam,” Dean said, frowning at him. Technically, one of his male tinder matches (now up to six – he actually had a higher percentage success rate with dudes than chicks on the damn thing, which he really had not been expecting) uploaded one of those ‘moment’ pictures of his dick every morning, but it wasn’t like Dean looked at them. Not really. “That all you’ve got to say?” 

“Thanks for telling me, I guess?” Sam said, “Dean, why can’t I use your phone to text Bobby?” 

To be honest, he hadn’t expected coming out to Sam to be so anti-climactic. His brother was usually the hug it out type, so he’d at least been expecting a pat on the shoulder and a too-precious-for-this-world expression. Instead, he got a complete non-reaction which… well, definitely wasn’t a bad thing. It might actually be a _good_ thing. 

“Dean’s addicted to Tinder,” Charlie said from the desk, “Apparently it’s your fault.” 

“This is both of your faults,” Dean returned, pointing at both of them, “You both suck.” 

“I still don’t get it.” 

“There’s a guy,” Dean said, through gritted teeth, “That I know, who showed up on my Tinder.” 

“And he’s been too chicken shit to do anything about it for the past month,” Charlie piped up. Dean face planted on his bed and did his best to suffocate himself in his damn pillow, because this could not happening. He should never have let Sam and Charlie have meet each other in the first place. “He won’t swipe right or left. He’s like one of those glitches in video games where the player get stuck running round in circles till you reboot the system and you lose all your progress. So now he freaks when anyone touch they phone, lest they accidentally get him unstuck.” 

“I’m not ready,” Dean said into his pillow. 

“Dean, we don’t talk pillow.” 

“I am not ready,” Dean said, actually into the room this time. 

“Well you just came out to me,” Sam said. Dean returned to hiding into his pillow. “Dean, you are freaking out about this Tinder guy way more than what you just did.” 

“Which was huge, by the way,” Charlie said, reaching over to slap him on the back. 

“Yeah, congrats, Dean,” 

“First step Sam, next step Cas, then the world.” 

“Cas? Always run out of some kind of food Cas?” If anyone was actually paying him any attention, they’d have known he was screaming into the damn pillow at this point, but they were both too damn busy bonding over how stupid his frigging life is. “Dean, this isn’t anything to do with him being a _guy_.” 

“It’s not?” Charlie asked. 

“No, he was totally this way with… what was her name? Cassie? Huh, that’s pretty ironic.” 

“You, shut up,” Dean said, removing his face from his pillow for long enough to send Sam a death glare. 

“It just means he’s really into the guy and he’s allergic to having feelings.” 

Then there was a knock on the door and Dean just _knew_ without even looking up that it would be Castiel. Either he had frigging Cas-sensors or he was just used to having that kind of luck, but next thing the door swung straight open (and he doesn’t know anyone else who opens the door without waiting for an answer) and he could feel the damn atmosphere change. 

“Hello, Dean.” 

There was a strong temptation to stay face-in-pillow and pretend that he was someone else, but he probably wore too much frigging plaid all the time to get away with it. 

“Hi Cas,” Dean said, jaw clenched, as he dislodged himself from the pillow and sat up. 

“Hello Charlie, hello Sam,” 

“Hey Cas,” They both chorused, clearly both trying not to laugh, and clearly pushing their luck if they expected Dean to cook them dinner and let them watch his Star Wars DVDs. Fucking best friends and brothers. 

“Run out of something?” Charlie suggested. 

“Salt,” Castiel confirmed, glancing between the three of them. Cas wasn’t exactly the king of social etiquette, so it was saying something that his best friend and his brother were acting un-cool enough that Cas actually noticed something was up. He was going to kill both of them. He was probably going to enjoy it. 

“I’ll show you where it is,” Dean said, standing up and practically dragging him out of the room where it was at least safer territory, “Sorry they’re, uh…” 

“Giving you hell about something?” Castiel suggested, as they walked to the communal kitchen. 

“You learn that phrase from someone else, or something? It just, uh, doesn’t sound like you.” 

“My brother,” Castiel said, smiling slightly as Dean reached up to get the salt. It was right next to the tomatoes and the frigging onions and everything else that Cas always seemed to be running out of. They both knew he didn’t need the guided tour of Dean’s grocery cupboard. He might need a couple of lessons in personal space though, because seriously, Dean could feel the heat radiating of the guy he was that close. "He’s somewhat of an expert at it.” 

“Well,” Dean said, swallowing, heart beating far too frigging fast for a two minute conversation about absolutely nothing and, hell, maybe Sam was right. Maybe it had absolutely nothing to do with Cas being a dude. “You just… help yourself if you need anything else.” 

“Enjoy the rest of your evening, Dean.” 

He could hear Charlie and Sam laughing before he even got back to the door. Fuck his life. 

* 

Sam informed him both that he wasn’t entirely surprised by the admission because he’d worked it out several years ago thanks to coming home early from Mathletes and hearing part of his and Victor’s ‘study session’ and that, by the way, Dean wasn’t nearly as subtle as he thought he was ninety percent of the time. He generally felt about as subtle as a brick when it came to the whole Cas situation anyway, which mean he was probably being even more embarrassing than he thought he was around the guy, ninety percent of the time. No wonder Charlie and Sam were frigging laughing at him. 

Sam also gave him a lecture about how he was using the guy thing as an excuse to avoid getting close to people or admitting that he was a human with romantic feelings and attachments like most other humans, even if they spent half their life on the road. Apparently, his emotional repression was endemic, holding him back and making him miserable. 

The whole damn talk was enough to make him wish he’d never bothered coming out in the first place. Apparently it wasn’t news anyway. 

* 

He finally faced the music two weeks after Sam and Charlie apparently became best buddies bonding over how pathetic Dean was when he’s into someone, mostly because there was a good chance that Sam had a point. 

He’d been freaking out because he _liked_ Cas and he liked him a lot more than he should given they’d more or less only talked about groceries. It probably didn’t help his personal anxiety that Cas has a dick, but it wasn’t the primary cause of worry. 

Anyway, he actually came out to someone. Sam was theoretically more difficult to come out than any of the people he knew from college, who’d only really known him for a few months so probably wouldn’t be all that surprised. Obviously, there was still the challenging idea of coming out to the rest of his family, blood and otherwise, but… if he could say the words ‘I’m bisexual’ to Sam, albeit almost accidentally, he could definitely make a right-swiping movement with his frigging index finger. It would be fine. He could do it. 

So, he did it stone cold sober on a weekday when he probably should have been doing some college work. He opened Tinder, felt actual _relief_ when Cas’ stupid fucking profile was still open (and the number of times Dean had looked at those four photos was getting creepy), and actually, honestly and deliberately swiped right. 

Even with the two hour internal pep-talk working up to it, he still wound up not being emotionally prepared when the damn thing said _you have a new match_ straight away. 

At some point over the past month and a half whilst Dean had been dawdling, Cas must have swiped right. Castiel swiped fucking _right_ which also meant the next time the guy looked on his cell, he was going to get a notification saying that _Dean_ had also swiped right. 

Dean had seriously not thought any of this through. Scratch _everything_ he’d gone over in the past few hours, or the past week, he hadn’t been thinking straight, or else he wouldn’t have done it. He wasn’t ready. He wasn’t ready for Cas to get a stupid goddamn phone notification saying that Dean was both into men and, more specifically, into _Cas_ , even if Cas swiped right first. He wasn’t _ready_ and his heart was pounding and he felt vaguely sick and he absolutely hated Charlie and Sam for doing this to him. 

New Tinder message. 

Fuck. 

_Hello Dean_. 

* 

Ten minutes later, he was knocking on Cas’ door, almost too nauseous to frigging speak and regretting pretty much every single life decision that led him here. He was an idiot with no brain cells who should have stayed the hell away from Tinder, where he’d have been left to pine in peace without the added pressure of dating apps that seemed anonymous and safe until you were facing down the door of the guy across the hall who kept borrowing your food. 

Cas opened the door and didn’t look remotely surprised to see him. He probably heard Dean swearing after knocking over his soda right after Cas sent the message from across the corridor, so any vestige of cool he’d hoped to maintain was already dead and gone. 

“I, uh, ran out of beer. Was wondering if you had any going spare?” Dean said, after a few minutes in which they both stared at each other in silence whilst Dean tried to remember how words were produced. 

“I see,” Castiel returned, smiling slightly. “Would you like to come in and drink it?” 

“Yeah,” Dean exhaled, “That sounds awesome.” 

* 

The whole thing ended because, apparently, male matches on Tinder were persistent and didn’t give up easy. He’d muted the notifications before the Cas debacle and had more or less forgotten about the damn thing when it came up in conversation. It wasn’t like he was still _using_ it. 

“What are you doing with my phone?” Dean asked, squinting in Castiel’s direction to find him lit up by Dean’s phone screen, staring at it intently. 

“Matthew from Tinder has sent you a message every other day for the past three months,” Castiel said, sitting up and taking the bedsheets with him. Dean only woke up because Cas moved and suddenly he was a lot colder than he had been previously, so the extra cold was definitely not welcome. 

“Dude, I don’t even read those things anymore,” 

“It’s fascinating that he seems to believe he’s making progress, despite the fact that you’ve never replied.” 

“Cas, just delete the damn app and come back to bed, okay. I’m cold.” 

“I hope he isn’t too offended. You didn’t reply to my message either.” 

“Cas,” 

“Bobby Singer has liked your new relationship status on Facebook.” 

“Get the hell off my smart phone and quit hogging the blankets before I freeze to death.” 

“You know what else would warm you up?” Castiel asked, finally returning Dean’s phone to the bedside table and moving back down the bed, pulling the sheets back over them. 

“My damn boyfriend?” 

“Readily combustible material. For example some kind of–“ 

“ – don’t you dare say it, Castiel,” Dean said, rolling on top of him so he could slam a hand over his mouth before he managed to finish his sentence. 

“ – tinder,” Cas finshed, before Dean had a chance to shut him up, eyes more or less sparkling with unadulterated amusement which was both unfair and too much for Dean to deal with at that that time of night. The teasing was a bit much from a guy who nearly stopped buying groceries to generate excuses to talk to him, but whatever. Given he was practically straddling the guy already, though, he might as well make the most of it. It was frigging cold, after all. 

His brother’s crappy sense of humour probably could have had worse consequences, all things considered.


End file.
